‘The ultimate triangulation is that the Tories will represent the interests of both the bosses and the workers.’
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Theresa May has not donned a Mao Zedong cap and proclaimed: “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.” OK, not quite. But she has been saying that she will extend and protect workers’ rights. Her party, the party of union-busting, boss-supporting deregulation will now stand up for the workers. This is a Tory party now seeking to take over Labour’s turf.

That turf, patchy of late, needs a bit of loving care. The disenchanted working class is the holy grail for vote-catchers, although no one actually seems to like its members. Still, working-class people must apparently ditch their life-long suspicion of the Tories and succumb to Theresa’s tick-box mentality.

Her strength will protect them when little else can. That’s the gambit. As we leave the EU, many employment rights could be swept away.

In a time of insecurity, what is being offered here? Certainly not wages – the increase in minimum wage that they’ve suggested will be tied to average earnings, which means it’s likely to be a minimal increase. Instead of wages, May’s offer is to those already in secure employment: that they can take a year off unpaid to care for a relative. They can also take two weeks off if one of their children dies: a whole two weeks! See, she is human after all.

So most people cannot afford to defend themselves when their rights are violated

There are also pledges to introduce new rights for those in the “gig economy”, those on zero-hours contracts and the self-employed, and protection for your pension from Philip Green types and their “irresponsible behaviour”. All this she calls the greatest expansion in workers’ rights “by any Conservative government in history”.

Where to begin here? The Tories do not exist to protect workers’ rights. That they can pose as a party that does shows how far we have travelled through the looking glass. Rights only really matter if you have the means to claim them. The Tories have made the cost of employment tribunals prohibitive, with the introduction of fees, and legal aid no longer available for these cases (except when it comes to discrimination). So most people cannot afford to defend themselves when their rights are violated.

The headline-grabbing proposal of a year off to care for a relative also tells us which workers are being “helped” here. There is little for young people in these proposals. I don’t know how long the Tories will continue to ignore the young, but right now they are.

The reason that even the rightwing, middle-aged press, which normally describes any employment rights as red tape and detrimental interference, can get behind this unpaid leave idea is because of what is unspoken. Caring is gendered. Who is it who takes time off to look after elderly parents and sometimes grandchildren at the same time? Who retires early because they cannot manage these often full-time responsibilities as well as a job? Who actually needs more than a year off and a carers’ allowance of £62.70 a week? My generation of women, many of whom are already fearful that any time out of work means they will no longer be seen as employable.

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In 2013, an IPPR report found that by the age of 59 there was a 50% chance women had had a period of caring for someone else, beyond looking after their own children.

Because it is women who are mostly carers, caring itself is written out of what is thought of as the productive economy. We do it for free. Meanwhile, there is a huge and ever-growing crisis in social care. Thus, in the name of “workers’ rights”, what is being suggested here is possibly a little bit more flexibility for women, who are presumably supported by a partner, to care for elderly relatives. The caring economy does not feature largely in political manifestos except for the Greens and the Women’s Equality party. The mood music of all this though is what matters. The ultimate triangulation is that the Tories will represent the interests of both the bosses and the workers. All conflict will disappear in May’s will to power. Workers’ representatives will be on the board of companies apparently. This is an obvious attempt to bypass the unions.

Will this seal in wavering voters? Will people accept that the Conservative party is now the party of the workers? If they do, there is little reason for Labour to exist. Increasingly it appears that that is the goal. May seeks not just to beat the Labour party, but to obliterate it.